Oral Answers to Questions
Will Stone Excerpts(1 day, 22 hours ago)
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Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Lab)
Will Stone (Swindon North) (Lab)
James Murray
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Funding must not be held up; it must get to the frontline to help patients, his constituents and people across the country. We are supporting ICBs to work differently with providers to identify and meet the needs of their communities on a new population-based approach. We are also reviewing the outdated GP formula for the distribution of funding to ensure that, for the first time in two decades, it will accurately reflect need and ensure that deprived communities get their fair share.
Will Stone
I represent some of the most deprived parts of Swindon, yet residents are having to travel across town to get access to healthcare. What is the Secretary of State doing to address that?
James Murray
My hon. Friend is right to point to the fact that the current model of care works least well for some of those experiencing the greatest disadvantage. I am pleased that we have joint commissioning arrangements of more than £28 million in place between the NHS and Swindon borough council, which will help to tackle issues for those most at risk. As I mentioned in response to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon), we are reviewing the funding formula for the resources of GP practices for the first time in two decades. That is a crucial step to ensuring that we have a fairer distribution of resources across the country.
Youth Mental Health Support
Will Stone Excerpts(1 week ago)
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Anna Dixon
I agree that youth hubs bringing everything together for young people are key to tackling these issues. Poor mental health harms young people’s life chances, and the long-term scarring effects are a major issue. That is why we owe it to our children to stop the harm and heal the wounds.
I am not a psychologist or a psychiatrist, but a number of factors seem to be at play: covid causing children to miss out on school and play, more intense pressure at school with testing and exams, living in a more insecure global environment, levels of abuse, discrimination and bullying, exposure to trauma due to family breakdown, insecure housing and homelessness, poverty and, of course, the role of social media and the online world—a very topical issue that I will return to. While the Government cannot address all those factors directly, we can shape a healthier environment for our children to grow up in and ensure that the support is there when they need it.
The previous Government’s crippling austerity hit our schools and the NHS. They failed to address the crisis in SEND, narrowly focused school performance on academic achievement and refused to fund the covid recovery recommended by Sir Kevan Collins. Their actions did nothing to help the mental health of our young people. In fact, they did the opposite, and it is noticeable that nobody from the Conservative party is here for this debate.
This Labour Government are already doing so much more—an ambitious and comprehensive set of reforms to SEND, an inclusive curriculum, additional funding for youth services, tackling homelessness and ending the use of B&Bs as temporary accommodation for families and children—but there is more to do.
Will Stone (Swindon North) (Lab)
On youth provision, does my hon. Friend agree that it is incredibly important that we have sport provision and mentorship, which can play a key role in tackling the youth mental health crisis? Will she join me in thanking my local charity, BEST, for the work that it does?
Anna Dixon
I would love to join my hon. Friend in thanking his local organisation, and I thank him for being such a great champion for sport in this place.
I will focus specifically on three areas: the NHS and access to CAMHS—to which I hope the Minister will reply—and youth services and action to tackle online harm. As of late 2025, more than 550,000 children and young people were on NHS mental health waiting lists in England, and more than half had waited for over a year. The Royal College of Psychiatrists has warned about how harmful that is, recently declaring that a lack of prioritisation to treat children with mental illness in England is turning treatable conditions into lifelong recurring illnesses, and that as many as 75% of children and young people who experience mental health problems are not getting the help they need.
Oral Answers to Questions
Will Stone Excerpts(10 months, 2 weeks ago)
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The Minister for Secondary Care (Karin Smyth)
The business case for the rebuild of the health centre has been submitted to NHS England for review, and NHS Property Services will in parallel be asked to approve the capital funding. Subject to those approvals, a new health centre will be fully completed in 2027.
Will Stone (Swindon North) (Lab)
Phlebotomists across the country play a vital role in our NHS. Will the Minister consider making the job role band 3 across the nation to ensure that everybody is paid fairly?
Karin Smyth
Phlebotomists are paid on an “Agenda for Change” pay scale, which is underpinned by the job evaluation scheme. It is something the Secretary of State and I discussed with the trade union Unison last week; I should declare that I am a member of Unison. It is working closely with the trust in question, but I am happy to discuss the matter with my hon. Friend further.
GP Funding: South-west England
Will Stone Excerpts(11 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Martin Wrigley (Newton Abbot) (LD)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered GP funding in the South West.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Siobhain. GPs are the front door of the NHS. They diagnose and treat illness, prevent disease and provide vital mental health support. As Lord Darzi once observed, general practice displays “the best financial discipline” in the NHS family while constantly innovating to keep patients out of hospital. However, GP funding is complex, obscure and insufficient. The bottom line is that the amount of money GPs receive is insufficient to deliver the obligations they carry. That is a view held by every single one of the 28 practice managers I met in and around my district, who tell me the situation is unfunded, unsustainable and unsafe.
GP funding is broadly based on two elements: a so-called global sum for core service costs, and additional quality and outcomes framework payments. The global sum starts with a payment per patient per year of £121.79—that is less than we might pay for our dog to go to the vet for an annual check-up, or about a third of the cost of servicing a Renault Megane. It is no wonder that practice managers spend their evenings juggling spreadsheets simply to keep the lights on.
It gets worse. That paltry sum is then modified by something known as the Carr-Hill formula. Carr-Hill was designed for a different era. It weighs patient numbers and postcodes but underrates deprivation, multimorbidity and today’s population health priorities. The consequences are stark and deliver what is known as the inverse care law. In my constituency, the Buckland surgery looks after some 4,000 patients on its list but is effectively funded for 3,200.
Will Stone (Swindon North) (Lab)
The hon. Member talks about the number of patients that GP practices have on their books. We have an ambitious plan for building more houses. Does he agree that we need to consider not just existing GP practices but funding the infrastructure for future practices, so that we have adequate services for people? There are places in Swindon that will be expected to take on thousands more patients, and the infrastructure is simply not there right now.
Martin Wrigley
The hon. Member is absolutely right: we have to consider these things. I have spent many hours persuading my local hospital trusts and the integrated care board to talk to the local authorities and work in the cycles of the local plan, so that they get their requirements into that plan. All too often they say, “A new housing development has just been built. We need a new GP practice with it,” and that is too late. The cycles do not add up. The system is broken, and we need to change that.
The Buckland surgery is underfunded by some 800 patients every year. It is part of the Templer primary care network, in which 2,500 patients are effectively treated for nothing. This means that the Buckland practice faces an annual shortfall of approximately £84,000—money that would cover another GP. If we then look at the changing number of patients per GP, in 2019 each GP was supporting 1,800 patients, compared with around 2,400 today.
Oral Answers to Questions
Will Stone Excerpts(11 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Wes Streeting
I know that the hon. Gentleman’s constituents will have noted, through his representations as a constituency MP, that he could not have fought harder to save that service. We devolve these sorts of decisions to ICBs, in order that they make decisions closer to the communities that they serve, with the conviction that those sorts of decisions are better taken locally than centralised in Whitehall. I understand the case that he makes, but having given ICBs a challenge, resources and freedom, we Ministers must resist the temptation to meddle every time they make decisions that they believe are right for the community, even if those decisions are controversial.
Will Stone (Swindon North) (Lab)
Will the Minister look into minimising the pain of patients going through hysteroscopy and biopsy procedures by requesting that medical professionals fully brief them on anaesthetics and pain relief in advance of procedures to ensure that they can plan accordingly?
Karin Smyth
My hon. Friend raises an important question. We are committed to improving women’s experience of gynaecological procedures, including hysteroscopies. Women should be provided with information prior to their procedure so that they can make an informed decision about the procedure and pain relief options, including local or general anaesthetic. He will probably make further representations, which we will certainly look at.
Obesity: Food and Diet
Will Stone Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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Will Stone (Swindon North) (Lab)
On that note, I will keep it short. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Dr Opher) for bringing forward the debate. I slightly disagree with his suggestion that food is the only answer, because I think fitness plays a part, but I guess that is a slightly different discussion. Prior to becoming an MP, I was a physical training instructor in the Army, and I have worked in the fitness industry for 15 years, so I have seen at first hand the positive effect that good nutrition can have on people’s mental and physical health—it is absolutely massive.
As the House will know, I am an extremely proud Swindonian and absolutely love Swindon—it is the best place in the world, though some might disagree—but there are some facts and statistics that I am less proud of. One of them is that 36.8% of children in my constituency leave primary school overweight—a shocking statistic. They are being set up for failure later in life, for example by getting conditions such as diabetes. It is something we absolutely have to address. As Members have mentioned, when we dig a little deeper into the statistics, we see that not only are those children overweight, but more often than not they come from deprived areas. That means it is not only a health issue, but an equalities issue. That is something our Government have set out to fix, and it is something we must take seriously.
Once again, I am proud that we are having this debate. It is important that we talk about obesity and food, and I am thankful that the Government have taken forward preventative measures for care in the community first, and I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say on that. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud for bringing the debate forward and hon. Members for taking part in it.
Infected Blood Inquiry
Will Stone Excerpts(1 year, 6 months ago)
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Will Stone (Swindon North) (Lab)
I want to record my thanks to my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham (Dame Diana Johnson) and the right hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen) for their tireless efforts in seeking justice for the victims of the infected blood scandal. The issue has had an impact on countless families, and I welcome the Government’s ongoing work to address it with the seriousness that it deserves.
Today I want to share the story of Jean Anziani, the mother of one of my constituents. Jean was a nurse who came home with a cut on her hand after a patient struggled during a blood draw, causing the glass syringe to break. Within just over a week, her health had declined so rapidly that she was rushed to hospital, where her children, 17-year-old Kenneth and 15-year-old Christine, had to wear full protective gear just to visit her. By then, Jean was unable to recognise her children. Only 13 days after receiving that cut, she passed away at the age of just 39. Christine shared that story with me; it was truly heartbreaking, and brought a tear to my eye.
Jean had contracted hepatitis B. The current support schemes focus only on those diagnosed with hepatitis C or HIV, leaving victims like Jean without the acknowledgment or the compensation that they deserve. The schemes were originally designed to address the most commonly identified infections, but they have unintentionally excluded people infected with hepatitis B. As a result, Jean’s daughter Christine is unable to receive any compensation or recognition for her loss. I would be extremely grateful if the Paymaster General could look into this matter for me and have further discussions.